http://loudjet.comNodeJS RSS ModuleThu, 27 Jun 2013 06:32:10 GMTOne of my favorite Bitcoin articles was written by Erik Voorhees (the operator of Satoshi Dice) entitled "Bitcoin - The Libertarian Introduction". It's well worth the read and makes you really consider the value of Bitcoin. No other article, video or talk has made me think about Bitcoin in such a positive manner until now.

Andreas states that neutrality is the most important feature of Bitcoin. What he means by "neutrality" is that the network will process your transaction no matter what you're purchasing, who you are, who you're buying from, or where you're purchasing from. Andreas draws a parallel of Bitcoin neutrality to internet neutrality in the early days of the internet.

Honestly, the part of the talk that I enjoyed the most wasn't the point on the neutrality, but his point on the rest of the world and the currency that they use. He says, that "Bitcoin adoption won't happen here, in fact, Bitcoin adoption will happen here last." When he states "here", he's referring to the United States. We have the convenience of banks, electricity, and stability; we (as in citizens of the first-world), won't see the utility of Bitcoin like a citizen of an impoverished nation. The main reason for this, according to Andreas? Neutrality.

It's well worth the 35 mins to listen to it.

]]>http://loudjet.com/a/money-for-the-other-six-billion/http://loudjet.com/a/money-for-the-other-six-billion/Thu, 27 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMTI had heard of James Altucher a few times, but I didn't really know who he is or what he does. I just remember reading a few articles linked to his blog from Hacker News; I do, however, mostly remember his distinct nerdy Jewish look (if you read the book, he has self-deprecating humor regarding being Jewish and nerdy all over it).

I don't really remember how I heard about the book, I just remember reading somewhere about the promotion. If you buy his book and write a review, he'll reimburse you for the book. I don't give a shit about the money for the reimbursement, but fortunately he'll give it charity and I'm given a bit of motivation to read a book and write a review to add content to my blog.

So, what is Choose Yourself about? In short, it feels kinda like a cross between a book written by Tim Ferris, most notably the 4-Hour Work Week, and maybe self-help guru Tony Robbins.

What does that mean? Keep reading.

Becoming a Made Man

I use the term 'made' loosely, but basically to describe how James earned his fortunate. In short, he sold one company, did all of the things that you mentally associate with extremely wealthy people: bought a mansion, lent money to everyone, and gambled until it was all gone.

Depression and suicidal thoughts came.

Choose Yourself Era

The "Choose Yourself Era" is described by Altucher as the present time "that to depend on those stifling treads that are defeating you. Instead, build your own platform, have faith and confidence in yourself instead of the jury-rigged system and define success by your own terms." I don't remember him explicitly mentioning the internet as you might expect.

Permanent Temporarily

This chapter builds a case for you to make a move to self-reliance. Altucher states: "Zero sectors in the economy are moving toward more full-time workers." According to the book, his basis for this statement is some anecdotes about empty office buildings. I'm by no means claiming that he's wrong.

This quote is worth mentioning:

This about a new phase in history where art, science, business, and spirit will join together, both externally and internally, in pursuit of true wealth. It's a
phase where ideas are more important than people and everyone will have to choose themselves for happiness.

this as well:

You no longer have to wait for the gods of corporate America, or universities, or media, or investors, to come down from the clouds and choose you for success. In > every single industry, the middleman is being taken out of the picture, causing disruption in employment bus also greater efficiencies and more opportunities for
unique ideas to generate real wealth.

Rejection

The chapter on rejection sets the rest of the book up well. As Altucher mentions, we all get rejected at one time or another. One of the keys to success is to get just get over it and keep trying. This reminds me of the following quote:

You miss 100% of the shots that you don't take. - Wayne Gretzky

Also, to those of you struggling with rejection, you may want to check out Rejection Therapy. The whole point of the game is to get rejected every day for 30 days. If you try to get rejected and don't get rejected, you didn't ask for enough and ask for more. Building up a rejection shield is something that everyone who wants to be successful needs to do.

The chapter on rejection also starts to build a base for the foundation of James's philosophy on success: to be successful: you must be physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually sound.

Be Grateful

This is another perspective that I share with James. So many people wonder: "why am I depressed?" When this line of thinking takes hold, it's typically because we're focused on ourselves. When we start thinking about others and what we can do to help others, our mentality shifts into a mode of servant leadership. His book doesn't explicitly state this, but his writing hints that he'd share these thoughts. A good way to shift your mentality out of depression or your rut is to start by being grateful with you have. James recommends that you quite literally count the things and people that your grateful for.

Freedom

A lot of people say: "all I want is freedom." James questions, "freedom from what?" We spend so much time fighting from freedom, but we are already free. He recommends two things to harnessing that freedom:

Only do things that you enjoy. He goes on to clarify exactly what me means here:

One might say, "Duh, I'd love to do what i enjoy but I have to pay the bills!" Relax for a second. We're going to learn how to do what we enjoy, first. I'm not
talking about those "only pursue a career you enjoy" platitudes, either. I mean it down to your very thoughts. Only think about the people you enjoy.
Only read about the books that you enjoy, that make you happy to be human. ONly go to the events that actually make you laugh or fall in love. Only deal
with people who love you back, who are winners and want you to win too.

The Daily Practice. He uses the metaphor of our bodies being like galaxies that are empty and we need to find a way to light up our inner sky. We must do the daily practice. We must establish a regimen to protect our heart and the blood that flows through it. Doing this is a function of diet, exercise, sleep and other things.

Daily Practice

Physical Body

Shit regularly. If you're not, eat better.

Don't eat junk food.

sleep seven to nine hours a night.

Avoid excees alcohol.

Exercise. (He clarifies that simple walks are fine)

Emotional Body

Surround yourself with only positive people.

Avoid people who bring you down.

You can't be beautiful unless you get rid of the ugliness inside. Poeple become crappy people not because of who they are, but because they are crapping inside of you.

Most people speak on average of 2500 words a day. Trying speaking about 1000.

Mental Body

Tire your mind out daily. So it doesn't focus on worry and other crap. Set daily goals.

Spiritual Body

Give up all thoughts about the past or "time traveling" as he calls it.

Surrender and trust that you've done the right preparation.

Actionable tips to try once a day:

Sleep eight hours.

Eat two meals instead of three.

No TV.

No Junk Food.

No complaining for the entire day.

No gossip.

Express thanks to a friend.

Watch a funny movie.

Write down a list of ideas.

Read a spiritual text.

Try to save a life.

Take up a hobby.

Write down your entire schedule that you do daily. Cross off one item and don't do it again.

Surprise someone.

Think of ten people you're grateful for.

Forgive someone.

Take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Don't say yes when you want to say no.

Tell someone that you love them.

Don't have sex with someone that you don't love.

Shower and actually scrub.

Read a chapter of a bio of someone who is an inspiration.

Make plans to spend time with a friend.

Deep breathing.

Death

James states that a lot of people want to die. I didn't like this chapter as it didn't resonate with me. He goes off on a tangent on how to get off the grid.

Life

There is nice anecdote about his friend Kamal who is an entrepreneur and became sicker and sicker. Then Kamal started to tell himself that loved himself and didn't want to die. He got better. James states: "when we attach happiness to external goals, we often get disappointed." Kamal even wrote a book: Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends Upon it

Kamal later told James, "When someone is in love, they almost magically look better. I needed to be in love with myself to look better."

James then goes on a tangent about self-publishing.

Find Your Purpose of Life

He makes a compelling case that Colonel Sanders, Rodney Dangerfield, Ray Kroc, Stan Lee, Tim Zagat and Peter Roget didn't find their purpose until way later in life. So it's stupid for people to get worked up or depressed if they haven't found their purpose. He even states that he doesn't really like the word "purpose" because it implies that we're unhappy until we've found it.

Paradigm Shift

"You need to change for the changes that are coming."

The middle class is dead.

You've been replaced by technology.

Corporations don't like you.

Money is not happiness.

Count how many people can make a major decision that can ruin your life.

Let's Get Specific

I really like all of the anecdotes in this book. Especially the one about the origins of Braintree who is now processing over 8 billion dollars in payments per year.

Take out the middleman.

Pick a boring business.

Get a customer.

Build trust while you sleep.

Blogging is not about money.

Say yes.

Compete with customer service.

Business ideas:

Make a service business or whatever the cutting edge is on the internet. Start with small businesses, help them with get started with the cutting edge. e.g. setup Facebook fan pages, Wordpress blogs, etc.

Idea Machine

I didn't care of this chapter. He recommends that you work the idea muscle in your brain. I guess I didn't like it much because I already have enough ideas generated daily and I don't try much to do it. Furthermore, I see little value in most ideas.

The anecdote about Richard Branson is interesting and you should go Google about him now to read more.

Oxytocin

Oxytocin is the life hormone. You can trick the body into releasing some:

Give money away.

Hug.

Like someone's status or photo on Facebook.

Laugh.

Walk.

Make a phone call to friend.

Being trusted.

Listening to music.

Deep breath.

Honesty & Money

I loved this chapter.

People often think that you have to be dishonest in the world to succeed. This isn't true at all. Dishonesty works, until it doesn't. Everyone messes up.

Honesty Compounds. It compounds exponentially. NO matter what happens in your bank account, in your career, in your promotions, in your startups. Honesty
compounds exponentially, not over days or weeks, but years and decades. More people trust your word.

How to be more honest:

Give credit.

Be the source.

Introduce two people.

Take the blame.

Don't lead a double life.

Don't be angry.

Don't make excuses.

Make others look good.

Don't gossip.

Do what you say you're going to do.

Enhance the lives of others.

Conclusion

This book has a lot of content. Some that I didn't mention: 1) Alex Day and his story 2) The Curious Case of the Sexy Image. 3) Gandhi 4) Wood Allen. It's jam packed. Some of the chapter titles don't match the content in the chapter. Some of the content feels out of place. Overall, is the book worth reading? If you enjoy reading books self-help books or entrepreneurial books, then you'll definitely enjoy this one. I was in a bit of rut and reading this book gave me enough of a boost to get out of it. These books are like a drug. Typically, their effects give an immediate boost. Some of them help shape the way that you think.

Deciding to close down a company is rarely an easy decision. The purpose of this post to analyze the failure of Gitpilot. Unfortunately, it will not serve as an entertaining narrative as I need to get these raw thoughts out before they fade away; it's already been three months since we've terminated the company. However, it does serve as a great reference on lessons-learned for my ex-cofounder Corey and me.

Let's revisit how Gitpilot came about. If you want to see any of the demos of Gitpilot, scroll-down to the bottom and look under Media.

Genesis

Corey, Brian, and I founded Reflect7 in 2009 to bring sports' information such as schedules, roster, etc to fans on the iPhone. Corey and I were the primary developers on the projects; we were big fans of agile methodologies. In particular, we used a simplified system of writing our action items for the upcoming week and documenting our accomplishments from the previous week. Ideally, all action items were accomplished.

We typically used either Google docs or email to keep track of action items and accomplishments. It felt unwieldy. How productive were we really? Wouldn't it be great to see if Corey completed a task or had started working on a task? What if there was a way to tie each task to our code repositories? Would that help us to see inefficiencies and improve upon them? It makes me feel good about completing things by leveraging my compulsive nature to make a list and check shit off.

Eventually we sold Reflect7, we were pondering on what to do next. I was on the hunt for the perfect productivity solution.

I told Brian and Corey the story of how Buffer validated their idea without having have built more than a landing page. Corey then thought it'd be cool to build a concept of Git integrated with project management. Corey came up with the concept and named it Gitpilot. He created a simple landing page with mocked up screenshots, listed the benefits of Gitpilot, and put a textbox to register an email address. We submitted it to a few social media sites and within a few days, had 250 visitors!

Gitpilot the Web App

Brian moved on to work on his own startup that he had built up before we sold Reflect7; Corey and I felt that the 250 users validated the idea. So we formally incorporated Gitpilot LLC.

Gitpilot started out as a web app. The idea is that you'd download a cross-platform daemon (background-program) that'd hook into your Git repo and notify the site of changes. We thought that the web app would be ideal as devs were use to interacting with Git repos because of Github and we'd be able to target all platforms from the start.

Development with Colleagues Becomes Easy

Gitpilot was intended to solve a few problems:

Developing software with your colleagues using Git can be difficult. How do you coordinate development? Do you develop on the master branch? git-flow became a common model of developing software. But it still didn't quite make it clear on how to best develop software with others.

Git itself can be difficult for beginners. This was the most common complaint that we heard about dev starting to use Git. If we could solving #1 would solve #2 as well.

In short, version control, such as Git tells you who did what, but it doesn't instruct you on how. We wanted to make it effortless. A dev should not have to care if their on the master branch or the developer branch. A dev should just focus on the current feature or bug fix.

So we developed a vision for Gitpilot. We envisioned a world where you'd start coding and working with a team would come near effortless.

We envisioned software that was like a real-time collaborative Git GUI for git-flow. Hopefully that doesn't too much like the Start-up Guys But, it was never intended to be a Github competitor, but a Github compliment.

Evolution to a Mac App

We realized that a web app might not be the best place to start. Two developers might not be able to support cross-platform very effectively from the beginning. We needed to simplify.

Perhaps Apple's marketing caught us, maybe our Objective-C roots started to permeate themselves from our history at Reflect7, but we thought it'd be a good idea to pivot Gitpilot into a Mac App. The Mac app would allow us to do the following:

Focus on a small subset of developers. We were OK with this for launching.

Get revenue immediately.

Integrate with Git much easier than a web app could.

This decision came about after about four-months of development around November of 2011.

Apple announced their sandbox restriction for new Mac Apps. So we had to spend additional time to navigate around that. That was a huge pain in the ass.

By around May of 2012 or so we were able to launch a beta into the Mac App store. Over the months, we collected more email addresses to out Gitpilot landing page. We had over 600 at this time. We put a price of $80 intentionally thinking that it'd be set too high for anyone to buy it. We sent out an email to our list with some questions asking about their current development operating system and what their biggest problems with Git were. We then sent out 50 promo codes.

To our surprise, $80 did not prevent people from buying it. However, not one of the people who bought it contacted us on any problems or issues. But we did get feedback from some of the people who we sent out the promo codes to. As an aside, we thought that anyone that received a promo code for software that had a $80 price tag that they would be more inclined to test it, since they may associate $80 worth of software for free. It should be noted, that this wasn't the case. Of the people we got feedback from, one recurring theme stood out: there was too much Git magic going on with the repositories.

Iteration

We had an initial law of Gitpilot that stated: developers must have absolute faith that Gitpilot will not screw up or mess up developers' code without them knowing what's going on. From the feedback, it was clear that we had violated that.

We modified Gitpilot in three ways:

We made it dramatically simpler by chopping out features.

We notified the user of every Git action by an unobtrusive "dick bar" (a small non-modal overlay at the top of the window that prompted the user to action).

We added a contact form built into the app that enabled the user to open up their email client and send immediate feedback. We did this same thing in our iPhone apps for Reflect7 and what felt like an email every 5 to 10 mins.

We sent out another email to our list and submitted some more articles to social news sites. Very little response.

People were importing their repos and adding some improvements to their develop list, but very little action was taken. No one invited users to join them. We built a seemless user invite system into Gitpilot.

Price Drop to $50

Increase in sales, zero feedback.

Price Drop to $20.

Further increase in sales, but still zero feedback. Weren't any of these customers pissed off that things didn't work or happy that they found the solution to their dreams?

Using Gitpilot with Gitpilot

Corey and I were dumbfounded. We found the software useful. It promoted friendly competition between the two of us. If Corey had gotten most his action items done for the week, then I'd push myself to get my action items done. We thought about adding some gamification to the app, but it felt too premature.

When talking to more people, it seemed that there was massive confusion. Was it a Git GUI? Was it a project management with Git integration? Does it even solve my pain points? Was real-time even necessary or a benefit?

Price Drop to Free

We thought we'd do this and keep the beta label, but see if we'd generate a storm of feedback. We just wanted feedback. Over the course of a few days, we had thousands of downloads! We had maybe three emails.

It was clear that since we weren't getting hate mail or love mail, people just didn't give a shit. That's the worse for a startup.

The Omega

We decided that since people didn't care, that we should cut our losses and terminate the company before the end of 2012 for tax purposes. Gitpilot LLC was dissolved on Dec 31st, 2012.

Mistakes

When analyzing what Buffer did to validate their MVP, there is one subtle distinction that makes a world of difference. They actually had a "but it now" button on their site. When prospects would click it, a pop-up occurred that said "oops, you caught us before we're ready, but put in your info and we'll give you a discount when we're ready". Prospects had already committed to buying by clicking "buy it now." With spam filters as good as they are today, putting your email address into our landing page form didn't represent any sort of commitment. This might be the biggest lesson yet as it may have prevented us from starting the company originally.

We should have talked to more prospective customers before writing a line of code. Did devs have the same problems that we did? If they did, we should have found at least 10 that would have agreed to purchase the solution when it was ready.

I'm not so sure we should have pivoted into the Mac App store. At the time, it felt like a flash of brilliance of narrowing our potential customer base and generating revenue almost immediately. The web app may have solidified to out prospects that this isn't just some Git GUI. It's entirely different. They may have embraced it in a different way.

We should have focused more on our sales copy on our home page. Maybe even A/B test. Ironically when we put up help videos on using various parts of the software, this had did not clear up confusion.

(I'm sure there's more, I'll add them as I think of them)

The Future

The collaborative model that we developed while working on Gitpilot has value. We're not sure if we're going to open source the backend or even the GUI. I've started work on a Gitpilot command line app that integrates with Github as a backend that is intended to be open source, but I'm not working on a team at the moment, so my priority on this app has dropped dramatically.

Regrets

When you are on your death bed, what will you think of? Will you wish that you had spent more time watching TV or browsing the internet? Will you wish that you had a bigger house or a nicer car?

Most likely you'll wish that you had spent more time with your family, spent less time working, and took more risks to soak in the experiences of life.

Jeff Bezo's coined Regret Minimization Framework. In short, one of the best ways to live a fulfilling life is to project yourself into the future when you're on your death bed. The idea is to minimize your regrets.

Struggle

Faced with the pending launch of my company's new product, my mind is ironically clear and calm. First three months of this year were brutal, almost more than college. Though, during this time, I've learned more about myself than in other times. Even better, I've learned what I'm capable of.

I was able to sustain working for on 4-5 hours a sleep per night 6 days/week. I got more done in three months than I got done in two years. I did this by going on an information diet, and leveraging both the Pareto principle (focus on what matters) and Parkison's Law (set work timers). (Thanks Tim Ferriss, I actually read his book after the fact and noticed the formal labels for these techniques) It is true that through suffering, brings strength. Through suffering, you can learn a lot about yourself.

You have a mission?

I use to believe that I wanted to "change the world."

Cliche, I know.

I still believe this. Except, my thoughts on the how are more clear. I believe:

everyone has good inside of them, therefore we should give most the benefit of the doubt

everyone has some form of suffering, lending a helping hand or an open ear can bring someone joy

every experience should be maximized to its full potential

compassion and tolerance for our fellow human being must be a priority to us in order for us to be fully happy

help others succeed and get what they want, and you'll find that you'll move faster on the path to your success

we should seek to build up and create instead of tear down and destroy

honesty above all us, the truth really will set you free

How?

I've been told that I should enter politics. But I don't want to feel like I would have to pander to populace for votes. I think that as a businessman and philanthroper that I'll be able to effect the most positive change.

I will:

donate to worthy local causes that can help people get their lives back in order

build business to give jobs to those in need

only support those politicians who believe that the rights of the individual are inherently more important than those of the state

only support politicians who want to maximize government effectiveness while reducing waste

only support those politicians who espouse the belief of the dignity of human lives

only support those politicians that preach of compassion and tolerance of others regardless of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation

lend my ear to a friend, family member, or even stranger who is in need

I take this statement to heart:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

-- The Declaration of Independence, 1776

I want to build this great nation into one that maximize's liberty (term from my great friend Brian) of its citizens. One that encourages each and every one of us to strive to do our best, to tolerate others, and to build up and create. Do not mistake this as a statement of nationalism. Rather, look at this as a statment and a guide to being a good steward of humanity.

The people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the
world are the ones who do.

This book has a few recurring themes:

Steve Jobs is a dick and seems to be able to exploit others into
doing what he wills. This is both good and bad.

Steve Jobs has a reality distortion field; see #1.

Steve Jobs is meticulous about the design of just about anything.

My notes will focus more on Steve Jobs the entrepreneur.

The book establishes early on that Steve Jobs has a disdain for
authority. After reading this and some of the anecdotes regarding his
family history, I felt as if Isaacson wrote part of the book for me. It
spoke to me personally. Perhaps, that means it was well written? Forget
the
haters.

A quote about religion that resonated with me:

The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith
rather than on living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it.
I think different religions are different doors to the same house.
Sometimes, I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s a
great mystery.

Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than
going to India. The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their
intellect like we do, they use their intuition instad, and their
intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world.
Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect.

Think about that statement for a moment; think about how it relates to
products. Of course their are biases, but I think that it could be said
that making a product intuitive or one that appeals to intuition far
outweighs those that appeal to the intellect. People are not rational,
and have different levels of intellect. Products that appeal to
intellect aren’t necessarily bad, see: Vim. They are just niche
products. When a person wants to have an impact upon the world, like
Jobs, this must be considered.

My vision was to create the first fully packaged computer. We were no
longer aiming for the handful of hobbyists who liked to assemble their
own computers, who knew how to buy transformers and keyboards. For
every one of them, there were a thousand people who would want the
machine to be ready to run.

Empathy. An intimate connection with the feelings of the customer.
We will truly understand the needs of the customer better than any
other company.\
Focus. In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to
do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.\
Impute. People form an opinion of a company by the signals that it
conveys. People do judge a book by it’s cover.

Often attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: “Simplicity is the ultimate
sophistication.” This became one of the maxim’s for Jobs’s design
philosophy.

The Apple II, Lisa, Xerox PARC, and Macintosh stories set the stage for
Job’s core beliefs on products:

Design leads engineering. That is to say, the design dictates
everything. Engineering must find a way to make it work with the
design. Most companies are backwards in this regard.

Simple products are easier to use.

Customers don’t know what they want, Apple must show them.

For the best product experience, Apple must own it end-to-end.
Hardware and software in contrast to the PC environment where
Microsoft just owns the operating system.

On competition…

Steve had a way of motivating by looking at the bigger picture. Jobs
thought of himself as an artist and he encourage others to think this
way too. His goal was never to make a lot of money or to be
competition, it was to do the greatest thing possible or even a little
greater.

Does it feel to you like companies get competition all wrong? They are
so focused on what their competition is doing, instead of just being the
best at what they can be. Companies lose focus by doing this.

The book doesn’t conclude this, but I wonder if part of the reason he
did this was to instill cultural pride in his employees. If they feel
they must focus on these details, then they’ll ingrain this philosophy
in their heads day in and day out. Thus, being a bit more meticulous
about their crafts.

On employees…

I learned over the years that A-plus players like to work together,
and they don’t like it if you tolerate B work.

So true.

Jobs had incessant demands for perfectionism in things that most people
won’t care about. Two examples:

The inside of the cases and how Jobs wanted them to look neat and
clean.

The way his factories look and how he detailed he wanted machinery
to look and operate. Even positioning.

Rebel Spirit…

It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy.

Market Research when asked about launching the Mac…

Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research when inventing the
telephone?

On Focus…

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what do to. That’s
true for companies, and it’s true for products.

On Design…

Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up
expressing itself in successive outer layers.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I felt as if I was taking a tour of
the mind of Steve Jobs and what made him tick.

Now, imagine what a person could do if they could lead in a more humble
manner, giving their employees credit, not stealing the spotlight, but
not being afraid of calling people out on their bullshit and pushing
them to their limits? Imagine if this person had a rebellious attitude
and a disdain for authority. What if this person had an overwhelming
desire to be honest, even at his own expense? Imagine if this person had
a love of simplicity and art. Imagine that this person is driven with a
passion to deliver maximum impact on improving people’s lives. Could
this person change the world? We’ll see.

I pulled into the driveway after I had just picked up my son Chris from
CCD. I told him that Steve Jobs had died. “Who is that?” he said. I was
a bit surprised that he didn’t know who he was; other than Jesus, Steve
Jobs has been one the most influential persons in my life. [Yes, I may
have subtly compared Steve Jobs to Jesus :p]. I wanted to share a few of
his quotes with Chris.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve
ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because
almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of
embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of
death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are
going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you
have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not
to follow your heart.

…

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want
to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No
one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is
very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change
agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the
new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually
become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is
quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other
people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out
your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow
your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly
want to become. Everything else is secondary.

This is an important thought to keep in mind as much as possible. We
will all die. When faced with death, we forget the minutia of life but
remember what is important. This should be done daily.

As I tucked Chris into bed, I said to him:

Those who are crazy enough to believe that they can change the world
are the ones that actually do.

]]>http://loudjet.com/a/steve-jobs-1955-2011-sharing-his-message/http://loudjet.com/a/steve-jobs-1955-2011-sharing-his-message/Thu, 06 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMTDo or Do Not; There Is No Try

Do you remember that seen in Star Wars where Master Yoda is training
Luke to become a Jedi? Luke doesn’t believe in himself and he claims
that he is trying.

Yoda then says “Do or do not; there is no try.”

Do you want to quit smoking?

Do you want to live a healthy lifestyle?

Do you want to be a successful entrepreneur?

There is no try.

The word ‘try’ is an excuse. You cannot ‘try’ to quit smoking. You
cannot try to become a successful entrepreneur. You know what you need
to do. You need to make the conscious decision and effort to do it.

To be a successful entrepreneur is as simple as this:

Identify a problem.

Build a solution to solve that problem.

Charge money for it.

I realize that this is a bit of an oversimplification. But, there is no
‘try’. You should just remove that word from your vocabulary.

How often do you run into someone that you use to be close friends and
you have a dialogue that is similar to this:

You: How have you been?

Them: Good! Good… how have you been?

You: Oh, good… so what’s new?

Them: Oh you know… same old… we should get together sometime for lunch
or something.

You: Ya, let’s do.

Them: OK, well it was nice seeing you…

You: You too… take care.

How do you feel after a conversation like this? Do you feel like you
have renewed your connection with this person? It seems to me that a lot
of conversations like this take place solely because it might be
considered socially rude to not acknowledge the person. Maybe the intent
of the statement “we should get together” is sincere?

A lot of people in my life have thrown out “we should” statements, but
with no firm date set. “Hey man… it was great meeting you at that
conference, we should Skype sometime” or “Hey, we should get some
cocktails sometime.” I’m sure they happen all of the time in your life
as well. Maybe you say them a lot?

Recently, I ran into an old colleague at the gym. We had a bit of small
chit-chat and I threw out the “we should get some lunch” line, I was
even being sincere about it. A few weeks passed. Shit, no lunch. One
day, I sent him an email and said “want to do lunch?” He couldn’t, and
replied that he was busy for awhile. Not a big deal.

The important take away is this: it’s really important to consider your
interactions with others. If you catch yourself saying the “we should”
lines, ask yourself if you’re being sincere. If you are, set a date at
that moment… if it doesn’t work that’s OK too. When it really comes down
to it, if you really care to meet someone, you’ll make it a priority.
They’ll do the same for you. If the meeting doesn’t happen, you should
probably just accept that this person isn’t a priority to you or you
might not be a priority to them. That’s OK too.

If you’re not sincere about meeting this person, please don’t throw out
a “we should” line. You’ll save everyone, including yourself, a bit of
guilt about the meeting not happening.

I’m always amazed when I discover a new piece of technology or software.
Usually, thousands of business ideas start pouring into my head on how I
can build a cool product. Most recently, the thought of
Twilio, Mailgun, and
Sendgrid came to mind.

An internal dialogue raged on in my mind:

“SMS and email are some of the most ubiquitous communication tools,
not to mention very pervasive.”

”What could I build quickly to monetize and spread virally?”

“Focus, you fool…”

“You’re in the process of selling one company
and you just started another. Plus, no one
really cares about how you’re using cool tech.”

And then I dropped the thought.

This has happened to me time and time again. In fact, that’s how
Reflect7 was founded. I knew the iPhone would be hot. I knew that
consumers would purchase them by the ton. I just didn’t know what apps
to develop for it yet. Eventually we settled on sports’ apps, but we
didn’t consider the customer experience until the end.

I finally had this realization of all of this when I stumbled upon this
video:

It was Steve Jobs who made it crystal clear as to what I had done. I was
thinking a lot about the technology and how I could sell that, rather
than consider customer problems and how I could build products that
delivered a superb experience. This is what
Gitpilot will do.